Monday, June 27, 2011

Help your book go viral with a Social Media Release

A social media press release (SMR) is a powerful free tool that will increase chances of your story or your book going viral. An SMR tells a story about your book, using video, audio, social media and text.

Unlike traditional press releases--which have not changed in 100 years--the SMR makes it easy for people to copy and retweet key elements of your release.

Here's what an SMR might include, in order of appearance:

1. Contact information.Email, phone, Facebook page... All the ways to get in touch with you.

2. A short and relevant headlineThe headline of your press release should be less than 120 characters, so the reader can retweet it, with a link. The headline must include relevant key words. Otherwise, the reader will never read the release. In a world where information doubles every year, all we get is one glance. No more. If the title is not catchy and relevant... game over.

3. Core news facts:Bullet points describing the core facts.

4. Relevant multimedia.Video, audio, graphics with embed codes. Make it easy for the reader to grab the media clips.

5. Links to resources.Add links to further resources. Your goal is to make it easy for your reader to research and write an article about your book.

6. Pre-approved quotesBlurbs etc. that speak highly of your book.

7. 130-200 word (or less) paragraphs.Make it easy for the reader--journalist, blogger, or PR person--to cut and paste the paragraphs into a blog piece or article.

8. Social media sharing buttons.Put buttons in the press release for all the major social media sharing tools: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Make it easy for the reader to click and share.